Ghosts
by Octopus Ink
Summary: Summary: Age 18, Ranma Saotome's dreams have been haunted lately by ghosts of the future. It won't be long before a past enemy sucks him into this new, wild ride. T just in case.
1. Ranma has a Dream

**A/N: So here is a little short story I was inspired to write today (Nov. 1****st****). For now The Wild Water War is on hiatus until I get some good ideas (I **_**promise **_**I won't forget about it!) so I thought you guys might like a lil' something in the meantime. Once again, a bit of a practice fic. Enjoy! P.S. This is not a dark, creeper fic that some may have been hoping for, in fact I don't know completely what I'll make it into. But I hope you like it anyway!**

Summary: Age 18, Ranma Saotome's dreams have been haunted lately by ghosts of the future. It won't be long before a past enemy sucks him into this new, wild ride.

_Wind. Cold wind. Wet wind. The storm that the Weather Network had been cautiously predicting for two weeks now was finally here. Hopefully it would just destroy everything quickly and be over with already. _Random thoughts passed through Ranma's head as he and Akane quickly ran home; hopefully just before the rain would begin.

"You two are particularly late," said Kasumi as she observed them remove their coats and drop their bags. "I was getting worried."

"Ukyo begged us to help prepare her shop before the hurricane hits. I would have felt bad leaving her to do it all herself." Akane replied, slipping a sweater over her uniform.

"Yeah, and it's not like _you two_ actually did anything, Miss 'Ranma's-the-strongest-he'll-put-up-that-barrier-for-you!'" Ranma grumbled.

"Oh, give it a rest. Besides, you didn't mind stuffing your face with okonomiyaki afterwards," she shot back.

"That's enough, you two. There's some leftover soup on the table if you're hungry." She smiled, casually walking away, shaking her head at the bickerers.

"You hungry?" Akane asked.

"Duh."

"Yeah, you're always hungry. I'm going to do my homework."

"Whatever," he absentmindedly said while rushing to the kitchen, and shovelling whatever was left of the bowl into his mouth.

...

"G'night Ranma!" Genma said unusually, happily pulling the covers up and curling into a ball to keep warm.

"I hope you have horrible dreams," Ranma shuddered at the old man, remembering the recent dream, well, nightmare he had of being forced to eat an entire platter of Akane's rice balls.

_Pit-pat. Pit-pat. Splish-splash._

He listened to the sound of the rain beating against the roof, and he could hear the very strong howl of the wind that was only a few feet away from where he was sleeping. Slowly, he closed his eyes and drifted into a slumber.

_There was a child in the distance. No – in fact it was a young adult...as Ranma drew closer to it it developed a figure, it was a girl. Probably a few years younger than Ranma. It almost looked like Akane._

_The girl turned around and revealed an un-extraordinary face, it was just a child, neither beautiful nor hideous, at the one angle she seemed astonishing, and at another she seemed horrid. _

"_Hello." She said._

"_Hi," he replied._

"_Are you Ranma?"_

_He nodded._

"_I'm Midori."_

_For some reason which he was not familiar with, he wasn't controlling his voice. He just seemed to be blurting out the little words in their conversations._

"_Hi."_

"_Are you wondering who I am?" She giggled, combing a strand of dark hair behind her ear with a finger._

_Once more, he nodded._

"_You're my father."_

"_Father?"_

"_Yes."_

"_Who's your mother?"_

"_Well, that depends. Right now my mother is Akane Tendo. But, if you decide to marry Ukyo Kuonji, that girl would look like this." And when he blinked, a new girl was standing before him. She was built athletically, and had the exact face he recalled Ukyo having as a child. "Now her name is Hanako. If you decide to marry Shampoo, she would look like this." A girl with purple hair now stood before him, with numerous braids on the sides of her head and the big eyes of Cologne looked at him curiously. "And now, her name is Yoko. You see how it works?" And she proceeded to morph back into Midori. "But I'm Akane's child, not those two's. I can only take the shape of them."_

"_So, which do I marry again? And why are you here and not the others?" Confusion spinned in his head. He didn't have any daughters! He wasn't married!_

"_Well, I want to be here .I guess they could if they wanted to. But I'll only exist in the future if you marry Akane. Right now, well, I'm just a dream."_

"_I'm so confused! So, did the ghost me marry the ghost Akane and have the ghost you! It doesn't make sense!"_

"_I'm just a dream, father. I don't have to make sense." Her mystical voice laughed, _and I woke up, panting, and jumped at the crack of thunder.


	2. A Boy?

Chapter 2

Ranma was looking very strange today at breakfast; Akane was observing. First of all, he had waited for his dad to chuck _him_ into the koi pond before 6 am, rather than the other way around. Next, he wasn't gobbling down his food; in fact, now that she noticed it, he was barely eating. And thirdly, he kept giving her a _very_ creepy look.

"So Ranma, did you dream about cats or something?" Nabiki rested her face in her hands, looking interestedly across the table at him.

"No. No dreams, no bad dreams, what are you talking about?" He snapped back, jolting out of his trance.

"Well, you look like you've seen a ghost!" Nabiki frowned.

And at that remark Ranma's eyes widened and looked coldly over at Akane once more.

After a loud bang of her fist on the table, Akane leaned over to him. "_What_ did I do to deserve these dirty looks?"

"What? I'm _not_ looking at you, ox-face." He retorted smugly, peeking at her expression out of the corner of his eye, which was obviously not a good idea after receiving a smashed bowl of rice on the top of his head.

"What did I deserve _that _for?"

"For not having some common sense."

"Coming from you, that means so much."

If only poor Ranma had laid back on the morning insults, he wouldn't have been asked about his black eye and bandages later at school.

"What insult did you use this time, Ranma?" Gosunkugi asked happily.

"There _was_ no insult, that tomboy just overreacted again."

"Akane, you poor thing, having to take that abuse of his each morning. I don't know how you're going to survive the marriage."

Overhearing the words _Akane_ and _marriage_, Ranma shuddered. It wasn't that he was angry at Akane, not for the dream at least, it was that he was scared that the daughter she would supposedly birth came off as so..._evil_.

"Anyways, are you excited for the wedding, Akane? Even though your marriage might be a bit rocky because of your unfaithful, no-good, verbally abusive, overly confident, cocky, delinquent-"

"That's _enough_ Sayuri," Ranma calmly interrupted.

"Fiancé." She finished.

"Speakin' a marriages though," Ranma began, pulling Akane away from the group of girls, "you don't think we're _actually_ going to get married, do you?"

"And what's that supposed to mean? Don't tell me you're getting cold feet."

"It's not like we even wanted to marry each other in the first place, dummy."

"So you don't want to get married, then?"

"Well, I didn't say that-"

"So you _do _want to?"

"Hey! Now wait just a minute."

"Yes?"

"Okay. Let's pretend I have this friend named...Inuyasha. And he's engaged to...Kagome. Does Kagome want to get married?"

"Does Inuyasha?"

"What?"

"What?"

"Okay. I'm changing this. Okay. Let's say...if we _did_ get married, we had children right?" He said awkwardly.

"Uh, right." She replied, with the same uncomfortable tone as him.

"Well, I suggest you have a boy."

"What? I can't control that!"

"Can't you?"

"No, we learned in health class that it's the man's sper-"

"Okay-okay-" he stopped her, and caught her looking relieved they didn't have to continue with that conversation.

"But why do you want a boy and not a daughter?"

"Uh, -"

But to her annoyance the bell rang, and they needed to go to class.

Luckily for Ranma, Akane had forgotten about it and hadn't questioned it again after school or during dinner. It was only right before bed that she remembered and asked again when she walked by him in the hallway.

"So, tell me again why you want a boy?"

Thankfully, he had prepared an answer. "For an heir."

"And girls can't be heirs?"

"Well, typically it's a boy."

"Whatever."

"Whatever is right...macho chick." He said happily.

2 hours later, Ranma was laying on his mat in the dojo, not able to sleep. He hail wasn't helping either – but he was afraid of seeing Midori again. Something about her just seemed...wrong. But eventually exhaustion won the battle and he fell asleep once more.

_He had arrived in the place he was previously. Just gray clouds, everywhere, but without Midori. She had disappeared. Ranma began to run. Perhaps Midori was coming, and if she was he didn't want to be there. But then, the ghostly girl popped up in front of him, with two ghosts next to her. Both were male._

"_You asked her to bare you a son! Didn't you!" She roared, sweeping up into his face._

"_What? Who!"_

"_Thanks to you, my would-be brother showed up." And she gestured annoyingly to the boy next to her. He too had dark hair, Akane's face and was roughly fourteen years of age. _

"_Hello, father. My name is Yasuhiro."_

"_Don't call me that! I'm not your father! You too, Midori! And who's this?" I pointed at the other ghost._

"_Who?"_

"_Him!" I pointed again at the man, who was probably about 40._

"_There's nobody there, father."_

"_Ranma, _not_ father. And yes there is, he's standing right next to you."_

"_They can't see me." The man squeaked._

"_Who are you, then?"_

"_My name is Ryoga Hibiki, hello, Ranma."_

"_Ryoga? What the hell are you doing here?"_

"_I'm a ghost, moron."_

"_The ghost of what?"_

"_The future me. Ghosts can travel through time, you know. That's how your kids got here."_

"_Why can't they see you?"_

"_They never met me. I only saw them through the eyes of P-Chan."_

"_Wait, why are you so old and not young like them?"_

"_Well, this is how old I was when I died."_

"_Wait," I choked, realising the truth._

_Midori was dead. This future ghost of her wasn't a future ghost. It was the ghost of my yet-to-be-born daughter. Which meant she died at a young age. The same with Yasuhiro; they both died at a young age._

"_You're dead?" I asked Midori shakily._

"_Yeah." Who was looking at me like I was insane from 'talking to myself, a.k.a. Ryoga.'_

"_How did you die?" I was afraid to hear the answer, as I was hoping Akane hadn't poisoned them with her meals._

"_I drowned. Mother was visiting my Auntie Kasumi, and you were training disciples in the dojo. You both allowed me to visit some friends at the Oceanside for the weekend. We went swimming and I went out too far."_

_An arrow shot me in the back. Literally, though I could feel nothing but emotional pain."Maybe when we have you, if we have you, we won't allow you to go."_

"_Yes, but if I live, then my ghost is not able to tell you about this, and you will allow me to go. It's like a big circle. Death is unavoidable."_

"_And how did _you _die?" I pointed at my 'son'._

"_The same way. I'm just the male Midori, not a different child."_

"_Ah. And you, Ryoga?"_

"_After departing Nerima and the rest of Tokyo, I went out training. I __**thought**__ I was going the right way, but I didn't and starved."_

"_That's tough." I said, surprised that I actually felt sadness at Ryoga's fate._

"_Do you know how Akane or I died? Where's my ghost?"_

"_Silly father," Midori's majestic laugh followed. "You're just so silly...did I forget to warn you about Saffron?"_

**A/N: Oh! Sorry, we're out of time. Tune in soon for Chapter 3. ;) P.S. For those who don't know who Saffron is, he's this evil guy in the end of the series that almost kills Ranma and Akane.**


End file.
